Collar support



July 8, 1941.

C. A. CALDER ETAL COLLAR SUPPORT Filed April 6, 1939 A. CALDER E. SHAW ATTORNEYS INVENToRs l CA ES AR LOUIS Patented July 8, 1941 COLLAR SUPPORT Caesar A. Calder, Verona, and Louis E. Shaw, East Orange, N. J.; said Shaw assigner to said Calder Application April 6, 1939, Serial No. 266,302 6 Claims. (Cl. 223-83) The invention relates to a collar support orlaundry board of the type employed by commercial laundries in setting in place the front of freshly laundered shirt collars.

The primary object of the invention is to im- .1 g

prove and simplify collar supports or laundry boards of this character and to provide a structure which can be easily manufactured and readily installed in position.

It is an economic requirement in the commercial production of laundry boards of this character that they must be produced cheaply and located inposition with the least possible amount of manual labor on the part of the laundry operator. Accordingly, the present disclosure features a construction which can be cut by die cutting operations from a long sheet of cardboard in such pattern Y as will minimize wastage of material and the disclosure features the providing of a structure which can be quickly installed in position between the two folds or leaves of a shirt collar quickly and without any complications in the manipulation of either the shirt collar or the collar support.

Another object of the invention is to provide a simplified form of support which will tend to lock itself in position automatically as an incident of installing it in position.

Various other objects and advantages of the invention will be in part obvious from an inspection of the accompanying drawing and in part will be more fully set forth in the following particular description of one form of device embodying the invention, and the invention also consists in certain new and novel features of construction and combination of parts hereinafter set forth and claimed.

In the drawing:

Fig. 1 is a view in front elevation of the upper portion of a mans shirt showing parts of one of the leaves of the collar broken away and showing a preferred embodiment of the invention installed in position thereon;

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the shirt collar support shown in Fig. 1 as it appears when in use;

Fig. 3 is a transverse vertical sectional-view taken on the line 3-3 of Fig. 1 looking in the direction indicated by the arrows; and

Fig. 4 is a plan view of a portion of a strip of stock cardboard showing the manner of cutting therefrom the succeeding collar supports.

In the drawing and referring rst to the showing of the shirt A in Fig. 1, it is of conventional design provided with the usual downturned collar B including the inner fold or leaf C, outer lio.

fold or leaf D, rounding into each other at the turned edge E. The inner fold or leaf C'includes at the front of the shirt the two usual lapping collar tabs F and G.

Referring to the showing in Fig. 4 for a description of the collar support I0 herein featured, it is shown cut from a long strip of cardboard so as to form the several collar supports, each of identical contour, with the least possible loss of stock material. Referring to any one of the supports, it is noted particularly from the flat showing thereof in Fig. 4 that they are of wide spreading V-shaped contour having a length sufficient to extend for some material distance in the space between the inner and outer leaves of the collar as shown in Fig. 1. Itis intended that the laundries or other purchasers of these supports will use only one or two standard sizes so as to t all sizes of shirts.

Each collar support is provided at its external angle with an integral, somewhat rectangular form of tab l i, projecting centrally from the lower edge I2 of the support. The upper edge I3 at its internal angle is provided with a recess i4 cut suiiciently low to permit the use of the usual laundry collar button. It is understood from the showing-in Fig. 4 that the recess of one support is formed at the same time that the tab of the next adjacent support is formed in the operation of cutting the stock strip of cardboard into these supports. It is aY feature of this disclosure thateach side edge I5 of the recess forms with the adjacent portion of the upper edge a point forming corner i6 adapted to engage snugly and in effect bite into the underside of the turned edge E of the collar when the support is in its operative position as shown in Fig. 1.

Each supporti is provided centr-'ally thereof with a long, narrow strip l1 of semi-flexible metal secured at one end as by means of punchin'g |31 to form finally an easily bendable metal clip I8. The free end of the clip when in its initial flat form as shown in Fig. 4 extends across the recess I4 midway between the pair of corners I6 for a short distance above the upper edge I3 of ,the support.

The portion of the strip including the tab Il and the part immediately above the tab up to the lower edge of recess I4 will bey referred to hereinafter as a central portion which is unslotted, that is continuous between its outlines and the parts on opposite sides thereof lying between the folds of the collar in Fig. 1 will be referred to as Wings.

The supports when formed from the stock cardboard sheets and with their metal clips secured fiatwise thereon are stacked in piles, boxed and so delivered to the laundries.

In operation and assuming that a shirt has been freshly laundered, the operator slips the support in position with the wings located between the leaves of the collar with the recess I4 approximately centered over the button hole in the tabs F and G, and with the central portion overlapping the lapping collar tabs 1. The operator then manually bends the upstanding end of the clip into the U-form I8 shown in Figs. 1 and 2. This operation has the eifect of automatically elevating the support as a whole to bring the corners I6 into biting engagement with the underside of the turned edge thus tending to hold the lapping collar .tabs in position even in the absence of any collar button. Further, the frictional engagement between the metal clip and the collar tabs additionally assists in holding the parts in their prefixed'position.

The structure obviates the necessity for buttoning the tabs thus preventing wrinkling or soiling of the collar tabs and thus saves the packers time. However, the device may be used with collar-attached shirts employing a button to secure the tabs F, the button simply bending the central portion outwardly to a small extent but not otherwise affecting the desired snug, flat engagement of the central portion against the upper front portion of the shirt and collar tabs. With such forms of shirts, the use of a metal clip may be omitted from the support. It is suggested that the corners i9 at opposite ends of the support may be rounded as indicated which would further tend to facilitate a quick locating of the support in position.

The tabs Il possess two advantages, especially when bent into the outwardly extending angledV position shown in Fig. 2. They avoid the forming of a sharp edge at the bottom of the support along the edge l2 which might otherwise crease the front of the shirt especially when subjected to pressure as when parcels are piled on top during transportation from the laundry to the customer. These tabs also serve to hide the slight wrinkles in the shirt usually resulting from the omission of ironing close to the collar opening, as is a usual practice in commercial laundries.

By the use of a device such as is herein disclosed, the collars of laundered shirts are protected from wrinkling or breakage until used. When preparing to use the shirt, the support can be readily pulled away from its position by lifting the support away from the shirt utilizing the tab as a finger piece and this may be done without any necessity of straightening the metal clip as this clip is suciently pliable to release itself from its engagement with the collar as the support is pulled away from the shirt.

We claim:

1. A cardboard support designed to t between the leaves of the collar of a freshly laundered shirt, comprising a strip of cardboard having a wide-spreading V-form, said strip provided at its exterior angle with a tabvprojecting from th;` lower edge of the strip and at its internal angle with a rectangular recess in the center of the upper edge of the support, each upstanding side edge of the recess coacting with the adjacent upper edge of the strip to form a sharp angled corner, and an initially flat easily bendable metal clip having one end secured to the strip between the tab and recess and its other end extending across and beyond said recess in spaced relation to both of said sharp angled corners.

2. A shirt collar support contoured to flt between the two folds or leaves of a downturned collar, confined to the front of the shirt and provided with a semi-flexible metal clip having one end secured to the center of the support in position to be accessible in the space between the front ends of the collar, said clip adapted to have its free end bent across the top edges'of the overlapping collar tabs to form a U-shaped clamp having suicient rigidity to maintain itself in its tab securing position to clamp the collar ends together during normal handling conditions to which freshly laundered shirts are subjected.

3. A shirt collar support comprising a sheet of -cardboard contoured to t against the portion of a shirt collar which includes its pair of overlapping tabs and acting to give a limited degree of rigidity to the laundered collar and an initially fiat, pliable metal clip secured to the cardboard sheet and adapted to be bent into position to engage both of the opposite sides of the pair of overlapping collar tabs, the portions of said clip which engages the tabs having a degree of frictional engagement therewith sufcient to resist accidental separating of the collar tabs.

' 4. A shirt collar support comprising a strip ofsemi-lexible material contoured to lit between the folds of a downturned collar' and an initially flat retaining metallic clip secured to the support adjacent itsv mid-length, said clip adapted to be bentinto an inverted U-shaped crotch portion to overlap the collar tabs to clamp the same together in their normal overlapping relation.

5. An assembly formed from a length of cardboard cut transversely of its length to form the assembly as a series of strips of identical form, each strip having a wide spreading V-form with a tab projecting integrally from its external angle and having a recess at its internal angle, the cutting of the tab of one strip forming the recess in a next adjacent strip, and said assembly provided with a line of strips of bendable metal, one for each cardboard strip and each of said metal strips secured at one end to its associated cardboard strip and overlapping the recess thereof.

6. A shirt collar support comprising a cardboard member adapted to be entirely contained between the inner and outer folds of a collar, leaving the front side of the collar free from the support, said support having its upper edge formed with a pair of point forming corners adapted to engage snugly in and in effect bite into the underside of the turned edge of the collar on opposite sides of its front opening, and means secured to the support and located entirely between and spaced from said corners for elevating lthe support as a whole to bring said corners into biting engagement with the underside of the turned edge of the collar and bendable into frictional engagement with the rear side of the lapping collar tabs to secure the corners in their biting engagement with the collar,

CAESAR A. CALDER.

LOUIS E. SHAW. 

